Obviously, it's no kind of "happy" occasion when someone clocks-out at 43 leaving a wife and 4 kids behind; it's easy to forget that someone whose "public face" and/or actions lead most to consider them fairly vile human beings can be someone's father, husband, son, etc. "offstage." I won't pretend to be especially "sad" for Breitbart himself, particularly considering I remember him asking "Why do you grant a bully special status upon his death?" when Ted Kennedy passed away. But for all the negativity that surrounded the man in life, I never heard anyone call him a bad father, so I have to assume his family is crushed by their loss and I feel bad for them.

Breitbart was an early Matt Drudge ally who assisted Ariana Huffington in the creation of Huffington Post; before striking out on his own with a series of websites (most notably "Big Hollywood") supposedly aimed at combating the boogeyman of "liberal media bias." The sites became a rallying point for writers and psuedo-celebrities of the extreme political-right, and really took off a few years ago with an infusion of support for the "Tea Party" movement.

"The Bigs" and their proprietor had their most infamous moments a few years ago, when they published video clips which seemed to show Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod ( making racist remarks, leading to her persecution and resignation. The video clips were later revealed to have been edited from a longer piece in order to radically change the point of Sherrod's words. A defemation lawsuit against Breitbart and his associates remains ongoing. He was also a major player in the bizzare career of James O'Keefe, the video-prankster responsible for the "undercover expose" of ACORN workers - which also wound up being based on edited/cherry-picked video evidence.

43 comments:

Funny Bob calling people extreme political-right when he is extreme political-left.The video clips were later revealed to have been edited from a longer piece in order to radically change the point of Sherrod's wordsSomeone got their spin from MSDNC.No it removed Sherrod saying that she later regretted her racist view of "his own kind would take care of him."So it is ok to have had racist views if you retract them at a later time.

Honestly, if I may come in the defense of Bob, I don't really get an "Extreme Political Left" vibe from Bob. Do I think his views or beliefs happened to match up with the Dems? Sure. But, until I'm proven wrong, I can't help but believe that were the Dems doing something just as bad, he'd comment on them too. Much like he did with Peta.

Personally, I had no knowledge of who Mr. Breitbart is. I still don't know who he is other than he start a couple website and was apparently not a very nice person. So, I could honestly care less that he's dead. I am sorry for his family, though, and all that they now have to endure.

@HeirAnyone who believes like Bob that we live in a Patriarchy are Radical Feminists / Extreme Political Left.--------What?To believe that we live in a male dominated society makes you an extreme Political Leftist or a Radical Feminist?What?You say these words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean. ---Also, I don't think that Breitbart would have posted about you if you died first. Why does this go the other way? And I'm a little tired of this false civility that people lay on when someone dies. You probably called him a despicable monstrous asshole while he was alive, there isn't a good reason to stop now.

I'm not cheering at Breitbart's death, like I was about Bin Laden or Saddam. I just don't care. I'm not going to pretend to be sad for him dying just because he was famous. I didn't know him and if I try to be sad for everyone who dies in the world I won't even have the time to do my job, much less the various leisure activities that prevent me from hurling myself off a building. I didn't agree with him, but I'm not happy he's dead. Nor am I sad that he's dead. That about sums it up.

@ PatrickLeaving the man's death aside, Heir has a point. Even a heavily left leaning guy like The Amazing Atheist thinks the idea of a patriarchy is BS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geQyrBGS_60&feature=relmfu

The fact that he and I didn't see eye to eye on mostly every issue is irrelevant here. My condolences go out to the man's family and I pray any and all individuals saddened by their loss find peace with losing a loved one.

Many here are only willing to give condolences for his family or respect that he was a family man. Otherwise, it would seem that he is but a distributer of "cherry-picked video evidence."

Yes, a number of things, especially shown on Bob’s blog, done under BigHollywood even gives me, a proud member of the radical religious right, pause. Nevertheless, I would dare claim that he and his affiliates have done far more good than harm. I’ve linked to a Steven Crowder video in the comments on Bob's blog before, and made it clear he is a Breitbart affiliate. Nevertheless, he is quite fun: like when he asked so-called progressives to support Israel… for the gays.

Now that I have seen some of the Amazing Athiest's videos... Jake, just (re?)read this. At least within the gamer culter, we still very much have a "white male" issue here that is in desperate need of fixing.

@ antecedentlessI read the article and that is unfair what is happening to her, the option to skip combat wouldn't ruin the games, as they would still have the option to play. Did people get pissed off when COD: MW2 let you skip the "No Russian" mission? No.

However, you need to see especially the last video I posted. He nor I are saying that women have it fine and have nothing to complain about, it's that men have shit happening to them too, to the point were it is absurd to call (at least the present society in America) a "patriarchy".

It's not that one group is oppressing another group and the oppressor group gets a free ride, it's that two groups (men and women) both get the shit end of the stick in different contexts by society at large, due to gender roles, and the concerns of one of these groups (women) are considered more important than those of the other (men).

@ jake: In what way to white men get shit? I am a white man and not a particularly rich one at that and I cannot think of a single way that I am grossly disadvantaged in this country. I just listed 5 ways women are and the list continues.

While you may be right about most of those statistics, the wage one really needs to get taken to task.

Women tend to receive a lower wage because the jobs women tend to go into pay less then men. And their's a perfectly good reason for this, many jobs traditionally occupied by men are dangerous, and they could easily die, thus the pay is higher. Even my liberal sociology recognized this, in fact he's the one who brought this to my attention.

And no one talks about domestic violence against men, (they say that women rarely report rape, but men almost never, because of the whole "men got to be tough" gender role bs. If it was a male dominated society (in America), you think the patriarchy would try to demonize women, instead of completely ignoring men:

Andrew Breitbart, at least in terms of his public work, made the world a worse place to live. He was a man who made his money by profiting off of lies told to gullible people for the purpose of scaring them and justified by an irrational hatred of the idea that we are our brothers' keepers. I'm not happy he's dead, but it's nice that his career is over.

Your love of MSNBC shows in your writing Bob. It's sad whenever any one dies who is guilty of something only to those who disagree with his views. Ted Kennedy deserved respect upon death and so does Breitbart. I know you're holding back the joy you feel about a Conservative dying, but try to write something a bit more classy next time. You other people in the comments make me sick.

I will go ahead and reveal my inner sexist and claim that the lack of "equal pay" does have to do with "unequal work," but not for how dangerous the workplace can be. Rather, it is the same reason why work is different amongst all higher reasoning mammals. It is women's tendency is to spend more time with the kids than their male cohorts. The rise in single motherhood is not helping matters in that regard.

"surely another victim of the Terrifying Black Man who haunts their nightmares."

Completely uncalled-for and inappropriate. Gawker didn't even play the race card, and neither did any of the tweets they reprinted. There are so many other potential lines of criticism of Obama (I'm assuming for the moment that that's who you're referring to) that it's completely unsupportable to assume that any animosity toward him must be purely based on his (half-)race.

Yes, the tweeters did make some other pretty wild blanket accusations, but I'm not prepared to accept that two wrongs make a right just yet, not even in the grotesque pageantry of American governmental politics.

@Jake Patriarchy is not a magic word that means all men everywhere are kings. It's an ideology equally responsible for shaming female rape victims, shaming male domestic abuse victims, the fact that women are paid less than men and the fact that custody battles are biased against fathers.

Get your ideas about feminism and the patriarchy from someone other than a sheltered, obese white male neckbeard "YouTube personality" who puts bananas up his ass and unironically calls himself the fucking Amazing Atheist.

@Jake Patriarchy says that women should be mothers and has an idealised view of the mother's role. The man protects and provides, the woman nurtures. The bias against men in custody courts comes from the all-pervading gender role bullshit that says mothers have a special bond that fathers lack.

Because although patriarchy like all discrimination cuts both ways, the male gender role is clearly in charge and defines the norm. Or because the first and staunchest opponents of patriarchy were feminists, because it hurts women worse and more widely than men regardless of how shitty individual cases are.

Just do some googling or read a book, dude. People keep asking these same bullshit questions over and over: "What about sexism against men? Why is it called 'feminism' then? How can this be a patriarchy?" like feminists haven't answered them a thousand fucking times where people with a tabloid-bred view of feminism just don't bother to look.

@A. IvanI've found a faq website and will be reading some entries. Thank you for making me rethink my past notions, but their's still a couple things I don't get. How does women getting less prison time for equivalent crimes then men fit in a patriarchy? And what about male infant circumcision? We all say that female circumcision is abhorrent, and I assume most cultures that condone it would be rightly considered patriarchies, but male circumcision is considered ok, is it just the patriarchy in a different form?

Jake, your real question is about why there are some male stereotypes and female privileges in a supposedly male dominated society, and the answer is that some of that (like custody/alimony law) is about enforcing traditional gender roles, while other things (like enforced maternity leave) are about the fact that a lot of the people challenging the gender status quo have been women, for the simple reason that, to this day, women are having to work extra hard to get the same privilege and respect men do in many professional environments. The perception of women as secondary beings, domestic workers by nature, and as sex objects really does create deep inequalities. It's hard for men to see this sometimes because, as with most types of privilege, it's only visible when you DON'T have it, which is why many young misogynists will complain about women using their looks to get ahead without noticing that men do the same thing using height, loudness, machismo, etc. and that they do it without risking being slut-shamed or raped. Good luck with your research!

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About Me

Bob is a part-time independent filmmaker, part-time amateur film critic and full time Movie Geek. He is heterosexual, a pisces, and a severely lapsed Catholic. He is a tireless enemy of censorship, considers his personal politics "Libertine" and enjoys acting as a full time irritant to overly serious people of ALL political stripes.